The second most photographed thing in France after the Eiffel tower, I couldn't resist snapping my own shot. Called the Palais de l'Isle, this old prison dominates the old town of Annecy, but I'll detail more on that later as I did in fact visit this historic monument.
Annecy in itself is fairly small, so one gets to know the Old Town rather fast, yet I never tired of wandering those old streets, the mountains framing the skyline. It was always fun discovering a new little restaurant or cafe every time - like this bakery selling fancy chocolates that looked like chestnuts! (I bet they tasted much better than chestnuts too).
Another of my favourite things was the lake, the water was extremely clear and blue, and in autumn all the trees were turning beautiful colours. While the weather was still warm enough I often enjoyed walking along it and taking in the views.
Not long after the Cow festival, my birthday occurred as it is want to do (and how different it was this time, and how odd thinking that the year before I had been stuck in the Moroccan dessert looking after a little demon-sorry, child.) The highlight of my birthday this year was that Necia and Yannick came to visit me for the weekend, nothing like having my family there to celebrate! It was quite fun showing them the town as I hadn't really been there long enough to know everything myself, so it was nice to be a tourist too and have company doing so.
To my delight and surprise, they also came with presents, a gift basket of Italian awesomeness! All of my favorite things! (Including prosecco and good chocolate hallelujah!)
Because they had a car we took advantage of the beautiful autumn day and drove all the way around the lake, stopping at a lovely picnic spot when we saw fit. We also saw what I hoped to be the last wasp of the year given how they had plagued us all Summer! (I was even stung in Eastern Europe the sneaky bastards!)
After our little feast we stopped off for some photo-taking in this tiny village with the ivy turning crimson. I do love how beautiful everything becomes in Autumn.
As a fancy treat we went out to the restaurant L'etage which I cannot recommend enough for trying the local food. We shared a cheese fondue (Fondue Savoyarde) and Tartiflette which is a traditional dish from the region involving potatoes, onions, bacon and lots and lots of cheese. Delicious!
We all tried very hard not to drop our bread in the fondue as the forfeit is of course jumping in the lake like in Asterix and Obelix -and in Annecy the lake is never far away!
We also went to the morning market as although it is expensive, it has an impressive array of goods, even just to look at and admire if we didn't feel like buying anything. There is also an antique market on the same streets of the old town on a different day, and occasionally I would wander it, though I never saw anything worth buying (and one finds it difficult to cart antique chairs around in a backpack, no matter how pretty or cheap it was).
Annecy in Autumn was definitely a sight to remember, especially at the Pont des Amours, which as the story goes was built so that young lovers could meet in the middle rather than going all the way around the canal - the other more amusing and probably more accurate story states that it was in fact the prostitutes bridge and was built to make an easy meeting point. Regardless, we used it to get a photo of autumn at its best. I can't thank Necia and Yannick enough for coming to see me for my weekend and making it truly memorable for me.
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